Made me laugh tonight:- I asked my son if he wanted to come out with us for the afternoon tomorrow (we are fairly local). He replied "no thanks I will stay at home". He sent another message 30 seonds later saying "I mean school" !

It didnt upset me as I know he does love it when he is here with us, however it is nice to know he feels equally happy at school.

I didnt realise there was a Christmas Fair until my DS txted me last night. Its not in the calendar, was there a letter about it? However I shall go to it although to me Christmas still feels a long way off!

Nick Duffell (ex-boarder and psychotherapist) covers this in his books The Making of Them and Wounded Leaders. Some of his patients who boarded have told him plaintively "I didn't know where home really was". And an Old Blue posting on one of these threads (possibly The Making of Them, which I seem to remember was put up by Helen) has made the same point. Nick compares these lost souls to Peter Pan who flew out of the window and never succeeded in finding his way back home (JM Barrie was also a boarder). In Peter's case he found Wendy - the classic boarding school boy's fantasy of a girl who adored him and stood in for his mother at the same time.

Nick Duffell (ex-boarder and psychotherapist) covers this in his books The Making of Them and Wounded Leaders. Some of his patients who boarded have told him plaintively "I didn't know where home really was". And an Old Blue posting on one of these threads (possibly The Making of Them, which I seem to remember was put up by Helen) has made the same point. .

You have to remember that back in them thar days CH was for children with "difficult" backgrounds / home life so spending the majority of their years in a sheltered stable environment was sometimes preferable to where they were sent to in "holiday" time. Outside school you had no friends, perhaps a few acquaintances and a house which (fill in your own experiences)

It’s not just boarding school pupils. Our sons had difficulty with this concept, we were a British Council couple and were moved every few years, mostly moving continent as well as home. To the boys, Home was moveable it was where their parents were, not a fixed physical building.

Recently I went to a friend’s funeral. I’d known her for 25 years, but that was no time in comparison with others there. I gave a lift to two who had been in the same class as her from Primary 1 through to VI form. None of them had ever left this corner of north west Wales. It made me feel quite unsettled and that was nothing to do with CH.

Katharine Dobson (Hills) 6.14, 1959 - 1965
Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia!

It’s not just boarding school pupils. Our sons had difficulty with this concept, we were a British Council couple and were moved every few years, mostly moving continent as well as home. To the boys, Home was moveable it was where their parents were, not a fixed physical building.

Before I sold the farm I had a neighbour 2km away who headed the British Council in a south American republic. A strange character and he wasn't even British! 5 km away was his equivalent in the same country but for Sweden. It was great speaking Portuguese with them but they had no apparent connection with their children. I have seen the same with forces brats; is it good for the children? Perhaps CH would have given them a stable background. (We had two boys in Prep A in my time who might also qualify - one from Hong Kong and the other from Ireland)

OTOH I had two cousins who lived at their home - one conveniently died early and the other was very glad to escape his family. I (and he) remember(s) the one still living who, when still at CH Prep age, begged to be taken away from his "family" - he and I are totally cut off from our blood relations. I only discovered a month ago that I have/had a sister but I don't even know her name. That is what broken families do to you and compound it with frequent moves and I suspect the results can be horrendous

Possibly because I had been a boarder, I made sure we remained connected with our sons. Yes they started boarding at 8, but they certainly knew us! We saw them every school holidays and they went to their grandmothers for half terms.

One of their comments on their lives is not that they missed us, but their knowledge of children’s TV is not the same as their peer group’s. They think of a different Dr Who as the first they remember etc.

Katharine Dobson (Hills) 6.14, 1959 - 1965
Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia!